Tennis – Dominant Sets in ATP Masters Events

07/05/2015 | By | Reply More

A popular form of trading is laying the player a break up – I’ve written a great deal about it before, and the positive aspects of this type of trade is that it’s easily quantifiable (using projected hold and break lead/deficit loss/recovery statistics) and that risk is much more limited than taking a position when the set is on serve.

The worst result for this type of trade is when the player you have opposed turns a single break lead into a double break lead, as the tick loss will naturally be higher.

On this basis, I endeavoured to assess whether there were certain conditions which created a scenario where a double break set was more likely. I quantified this as a 6-0, 6-1 or 6-2 set result, where a double (or in rare cases, triple) break set victory was guaranteed.

I looked at the ATP Masters 1000 events in 2014 to make a statistical comparison, and the results can be seen below:-

ATP Masters Tournaments	2014 Data	6-0 to 6-2 Sets
		1st/2nd Round				3rd Round +	3rd Round +
Event	Surface	Completed Sets	Yes	No	%	10	Yes	No	%	Overall %

Madrid	Clay	95	28	67	29.5	30	6	24	20.0	27.2
Toronto	Hard	97	19	78	19.6	37	3	34	8.1	16.4
Shanghai	Hard	95	18	77	18.9	35	10	25	28.6	21.5
Rome	Clay	89	20	69	22.5	38	14	24	36.8	26.8
Cincinnati	Hard	97	17	80	17.5	38	13	25	34.2	22.2
Paris	Indoor Hard	74	19	55	25.7	35	6	29	17.1	22.9
Miami	Hard	153	36	117	23.5	63	15	48	23.8	23.6
Monte Carlo	Clay	95	36	59	37.9	33	14	19	42.4	39.1
Indian Wells	Hard	152	40	112	26.3	78	20	58	25.6	26.1

Overall		947	233	714	24.6	387	101	286	26.1	25.0
Hard/Indoor		668	149	519	22.3	286	67	219	23.4	22.6
Clay		279	84	195	30.1	101	34	67	33.7	31.1

Quite surprisingly, there were slightly fewer dominant set wins in the first and second round of tournaments. This, on the surface, is quite strange as it would be logical to assume that the ability differential between players was highest here. However, it also features players who tend to be weaker on serve, and frequent chokers, and this may be a contributory factor.

The main striking difference was the propensity for clay events to have much higher 6-0 to 6-2 set wins than hard or indoor hard court. 2014 Clay Masters 1000 events had 7.8% more dominant sets than those on hard or indoor hard in the first two rounds, and 10.3% in the later stages of events, which generated an 8.5% greater figure overall.

On this basis, laying players a break up on clay is a much riskier prospect than on hard courts, and this type of trade should be considered more carefully on the dirt.

This analysis is a superb example of useful data that can be generated in a short space of time – it took me around half an hour to compile the above table. Hopefully it will inspire a few readers to undertake some research for their own trading.